“The Bridge” recap (1.8): Vendetta

This week’s episode of The Bridge is a real game changer. Everything is beginning to fall into place, and suddenly, Marco seems to be right in the thick of it. The episode begins in a flashback to six years prior. Frye is snorting copious amounts of cocaine and motor boating a stripper’s ass. Somehow in the middle of all of this, Frye loses his pants, like you do. A wealthy friend of his, Santi Jr., pays another guy to give Frye his pantalones. Frye and Santi Jr. take off in search of more drugs, but since Frye’s passport is in his misplaced pants, Jr. has to go alone. The camera zeroes in on Frye’s face as his friend peels off, and he looks uneasy.

Lt. Wade is questioning Jack Childress, the SOB that shot Sonya in her pretty, tender heart. Childress’s house was armed to the teeth, but when pressed about the dead women, he claims he doesn’t know what the detectives are talking about. When Sonya asks why Childress didn’t kill Marco in the warehouse when he had the chance, he just puts his head down and shuts her out.

Marco goes home in hopes of visiting his kids. Only Gus is there and he is still holding a grudge. He brings up the time that Marco bought him a bike and it got run over in the street. Gus tells his father her left it in the street on purpose all those years ago. He didn’t want a bike, just his father’s attention.

Lt. Wade and the others are convinced they’ve nailed the Bridge Butcher. Sonya, for once acting with her gut, has her doubts. She storms back into the interrogation room, and asks Childress about a comment he made earlier. He said that people were always stealing his things. Who stole your belongings, she asks. He tells her the Feds took some of his important notebooks and never gave them back.

At The Love Ranch, Ray’s old pal and current ATF informant, Timmy, shows up in an Ice Cream Truck. This vehicle is not full of delicious chocolate éclairs however, it’s loaded with heavy weapons. Ray wants to get moving, but Tim says he’s only delivering, not hauling.

Sonya starts obsessively pouring over paperwork to find any connections between the cases. She finds a name connected to Childress, Gedman and Meadows. David Tate. She tells Marco that she thinks Childress is being set up for the murders. Marco is familiar with Agent Tate, because they used to be on a task force together. He tells Sonya not to go too far down that rabbit hole however, because Agent Tate is dead as a doornail.

Frye is looking better after his seizure and is taking his sobriety seriously this time. He gives Adriana an invitation to go some big, swanky library fundraiser gala. He tells her to go and have fun, and write a puff piece. She warily accepts, and he tells her that he knows the guy, who’s bankrolling the party and there will be too much temptation.

Sonya and Marco head down to Juarez because Sonya’s wants to make sure Tate is good and dead before she lets this go. He apparently committed suicide in Juarez, and Marco tells her that he went to Tate’s funeral. Tate’s wife and young son were killed by a reckless driver a few years back, and he couldn’t shake the grief. Sonya questions if Marco actually saw the body, which he did not. So there is your reasonable doubt.

Charlotte is rather surprised to see an ice cream truck parked in her spacious driveway. She comes across Timmy lounging at the pool. He tells her Ray offered him the pool house. Oh hell to the no. Where’s Ray, she wants to know. Well, Ray is dragging heavy crates of guns through the tunnel, cursing Timmy all the way.

At Linder’s apartment, he is wearing a fabulous peach colored cowboy shirt with a horseshoe motif. He hears a noise, and lifts his shoe as an imposing weapon of self-defense. The noise is actually a scantily clad Eva, holding a cold glass of milk. She tells him she is there to pay a debt and begins kissing and mounting him. Her face flashes to Galvan’s however, and Linder wakes from his dream, terrified and probably still horny.

Sonya pays a visit to David Tate’s sister to find out more about the man. She tells Sonya that David had some major life problems. His wife was having an affair with a man in Juarez and she was leaving Tate and taking his son with her. She was killed in Juarez on her way to see the man.

Ray finally arrives at Graciella’s liar, guns and all. She’s eating a big plate of meat and fried something or other. She tosses money at him like a dog. He asks if he needs to “seal the deal” like last time, and she acts like she has no idea what kind of crazy shit he is talking about. Get out, she growls.

Lt. Wade and Cooper are gathering evidence at Childress’s when Cooper happens upon a long dead body, buried on the property. The body is ID’d as Kenneth Hastings, another racist militia man and probably Childress’s rival or ex friend. Sonya suggests that Childress is being set up by Tate, but no one believes her. It’s enough to push Cooper over the edge and he calls her the “village idiot savant.” Sonya looks more pained than when she was shot in the chest.

At Adriana’s house, her mother and sister are helping her get ready for the gala. She looks stunning and her mother tells her that every night she prays the Adriana gets a boyfriend. Keep praying, Mom. Her sister oohs and ahs about Santi Jr. Adriana yells after her sister, who is leaving, not to walk home alone. Always vigilant, that Adriana.

You will never guess who else is attending the gala. That would be Alma and her new manfriend. They walk in together all the while confessing their deeper feelings for one another.